Reply #8: It's something long in the making...

[punpirate]

... and not easy to correct. The tendency for administrations to overlook basic anti-trust law began in the Reagan years, and that set the stage for the sort of media consolidation we've seen from then on. The elimination of essential portions of the Fairness Doctrine is also a prime reason for the sort of reporting we've experienced in the last twenty-five years.

The biggest problem, though, is that good old-fashioned muckraking journalism is no longer encouraged in the newsroom--especially if the owners are not larger media, but other major corporations with vested interests in maintaining their status quo. NBC isn't going to be producing any four-part series on the war profiteering of General Electric, for example, if it's going to get a bunch of people fired.

What we've seen since before the 2000 election, however, is downright craven. My guess is everyone at the top of the corporate heap knew that Bush would open the floodgates wide to corporate profits, tax cuts and further consolidation. That was a powerful incentive to treat him kindly, which they have largely done.

I wouldn't expect recent events to transform the mainstream media, though--profit is simply a more powerful motive than duty (as the Bush administration has proven, over and over again), and the right-wing megaphone will be working overtime to minimize the damage the Bushies have invited by their actions. There's going to be a long, hard disinformation campaign waged to divert the attention of the press from the facts about the Bush administration.

The only thing which is going to change the media culture in the short term is a continuing decline in profits. Network viewership is down, cable news viewership is down and large newspaper circulation is down, as well. If it finally sinks into the skulls of the Sulzbergers of the corporate media world that their failure to first serve the public's interest is the reason for declining circulation--that they are no longer trusted to act in the public interest first and foremost--then maybe there will be some temporary changes.

Long-term improvement, though, will require the undoing of thirty years' worth of bad policy and corporate greed, not just in media, but in the rest of the country, too.

Cheers.